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Fr. Angelo Muttifounder Echo of Medjugorje
Message of 25 March 2015:Dear Children, Also today the
Most High has permitted me to be with you and to lead you on the
way of conversion. Many hearts have shut themselves to grace and do
not want to hear my call. You, my children: pray and fight against
temptation, and against all the evil plans which Satan offers you
through modernism!
Be strong in prayer, and with the cross in your hands pray that
evil may not use you and may not conquer in you. I am with you and
pray for you. Thank you for responding to my call.
The Cross in Our Hands! Mary opens this message by praising
the Most High for allowing her to be our guide. This itself is a
lesson for us, because we, too, ought to learn to praise our God
for everything. It probably doesn't come natural to us to
acknowledge God's work in our lives, and we easily forget how vital
the connection with God is.
"Many hearts have shut themselves to grace and do not want to
hear my call," Mary informs us, which should make us think that we,
too, could be among those with closed hearts. Perhaps our hearts
are closed and we do not want to admit it; perhaps our hearts are
hooked on the latest fads, and submerged by the desire to clutter
our lives with possessions. Perhaps this is part of the modernism
which lends itself so well to Satan who wants to draw us into his
senseless fight against God. "You, my children: pray and fight
against temptation, and against all the evil plans which Satan
offers you through modernism!" Mary's words are a warning, for
though Satan is destined to fail in the end, grave personal damage
can be done to those who allow themselves to be used.
"Be strong in prayer, and with the cross in your hands pray that
evil may not use you and may not conquer in you," says Mary who
wants us to know that it is faith and prayer that will allow us to
defeat the enemy. Not only, but Mary is with us; and where she is
there is also Jesus. With them in our hearts, the cross in our
hands will be a spade that pierces the old serpent.
Peace and joy in Jesus and Mary!
May-June 2015 - Edited by: Eco di Maria, Via Cremona, 28 - 46100
Mantova (Italia) - Year 31, no. 1 Poste Italiane s.p.a. - Sped. in
A. P. - D.L. 353/2003 (conv. in L. 27/02/2004 n 46) art. 1, comma
2, DCB Mantova 238
(Comments to messages by Nuccio Quattrocchi)
Message to Mirjana, 2 April 2015:
Dear Children, I have chosen you, my apostles, because all of
you carry something beautiful within you. You can help me to make
the love for which my Son died and then resurrected, may win
anew.
Therefore, I am calling you, my apostles, to try to see
something good in every creature of God, in all of my children, and
to try to understand them.
My children, you are all brothers and sisters through the same
Holy Spirit. You, filled with love for my Son, can speak of what
you know to all those who have not known that love. You have known
the love of my Son, you have comprehended His Resurrection, with
joy you cast your gaze towards Him.
My motherly desire is for all of my children to be united in
love for Jesus.
Therefore, I call you, my apostles, to live the Eucharist with
joy, because in the Eucharist my Son always gives Himself to you
anew, and with His example he shows the love and sacrifice towards
neighbour. Thank you.
Message, 25 April 2015:Dear Children, I am with you also
today to lead you to salvation. Your soul is restless because
your spirit is weak and tired from all the worldly things. You, my
children: pray to the Holy Spirit that He may transform you and
fill you with His strength of faith and hope, so that you may be
resolute in this battle against evil. I am with you and I intercede
for you before my Son Jesus. Thank you for responding to my
call.
Human Fragility Transformed The message confirms Mary's work
to contribute to our salvation, whilst diagnosing the world's
problem: Your soul is troubled because the spirit is weak and tired
of all earthly things. She says the restlessness of our soul is due
to the intrinsic weakness of our spirit and the fatigue induced by
all earthly things which the world offers, even imposes, upon us.
The contrast between earth and heaven, between body and soul, is
not a limit on the freedom of man, but a call to make a clear and
conscious choice, which God asked of us in the Old Testament: See,
I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and
adversity. I am commanding you today, to love the Lord your God,
walk in his ways, and observe his commandments (cf. Dt
30:15-16).
The choice between good and evil isn't something from fables
about ogres and the like. Do not ogres exist today? Are not their
crimes more heinous? Truly, our spirit is weak and tired of the
reality that surrounds us, of the papier-mache idols who lord it
over the world! We are tired of the hypocrisy!
We have seen idols come and go, and experienced glaring
contradictions between professed faith and life lived. If this were
to discourage us, we should remember that people of faith cannot
allow themselves to be discouraged!
Precisely because of the state of things, Our Lady has come to
encourage us with practical advice: Pray to the Holy Spirit...! Our
Lady is with us and intercedes for us. She is on our side. And we
are on her side when we respond to her call to prayer. So let us
pray! that the Holy Spirit may fill us and to strengthen in us the
faith and the hope.
Peace and joy in Jesus and Mary!
25 June 1981 - 25 June 2015 Thirty-four years with us! Thank you
Queen of Peace!
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Jubilee of Mercy Many question in their hearts: why a
Jubilee of Mercy today? Simply because the Church, in this time
of great historical change, is called to offer more evident signs
of Gods presence and closeness. This is not the time to be
distracted; on the contrary, we need to be vigilant and to reawaken
in ourselves the capacity to see what is essential. This is a time
for the Church to rediscover the meaning of the mission entrusted
to her by the Lord on the day of Easter: to be a sign and an
instrument of the Fathers mercy (cf. Jn 20:21-23).
For this reason, the Holy Year must keep alive the desire to
know how to welcome the numerous signs of the tenderness which God
offers to the whole world and, above all, to those who suffer, who
are alone and abandoned, without hope of being pardoned or feeling
the Fathers love.
A Holy Year to experience strongly within ourselves the joy of
having been found by Jesus, the Good Shepherd who has come in
search of us because we were lost.
A Jubilee to receive the warmth of his love when he bears us
upon his shoulders and brings us back to the Fathers house.
A year in which to be touched by the Lord Jesus and to be
transformed by his mercy, so that we may become witnesses to
mercy.
Here, then, is the reason for the Jubilee: because this is the
time for mercy. It is the favourable time to heal wounds, a time
not to be weary of meeting all those who are waiting to see and to
touch with their hands the signs of the closeness of God, a time to
offer everyone, everyone, the way of forgiveness and
reconciliation.
May the Mother of God open our eyes, so that we may comprehend
the task to which we have been called; and may she obtain for us
the grace to experience this Jubilee of Mercy as faithful and
fruitful witnesses of Christ.
Peace be with you!The greeting of the Risen Christ to his
disciples on the evening of Easter, Peace be with you! (Jn
20:19), continues to resound in us all. Peace, especially during
this Easter season, remains the desire of so many people who suffer
unprecedented violence of discrimination and death simply because
they bear the name Christian. Our prayer is all the more intense
and becomes a cry for help to
2
The Pope's Tweets Twitter is an online social networking
service that enables users to send and read short 140-character
messages called "tweets". Unlike many celebrities or other people
on Twitter, the Pope does not write about his daily routine, but
sends short inspirational messages.
L'Osservatore Romano reports that more than ten million people
follow the Pope's account @pontifex. "The presence of Pope Francis
on the social network is attracting more and more people,
especially youth who are the main users of the Internet," the
Vatican's daily paper reported.
The Pope writes tweets in nine different languages. The biggest
group of followers is the Spanish-language group; then English,
Italian, Portuguese, French, German, Polish and Arabic (which has
68,000 followers) language groups.
Following are some examples of recent tweets by Pope
Francis:
It is better to have a Church that is wounded but out in the
streets than a Church that is
POPE FRANCIS
We must learn from Mary, and we must imitate her unconditional
readiness to receive Christ in
her life. [Tweet 18 May 2013]
the Father, who is rich in mercy, that he may sustain the faith
of our many brothers and sisters who are in pain. At the same time,
we ask for the grace of the conversion of our own hearts so as to
move from indifference to compassion.
Saint Paul reminds us that we have been saved through the
mystery of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus. He is the
Reconciler, who is alive in our midst offering the way to
reconciliation with God and with each other. The Apostle recalls
that, notwithstanding the difficulties and the sufferings of life,
the hope of salvation which Christ has sown in our hearts
nonetheless continues to grow. The mercy of God is poured out upon
us, making us just and giving us peace.
[Homily, Saturday 11 April 2015]
sick because it is closed in on itself.Why is it so difficult to
tolerate the
faults of others? Have we forgotten that Jesus bore our
sins?
Let us learn to live with kindness, to love everyone, even when
they do not love us.
When we cannot earn our own bread, we lose our dignity. This is
a tragedy today, especially for the young.
It is good for us to spend time before the Tabernacle, to feel
the gaze of Jesus upon us.
Amid so many problems, even grave, may we not lose our hope in
the infinite mercy of God.
We Christians are called to go out of ourselves to bring the
mercy and tenderness of God to all.
Mary, Mother of Sorrows, help us to understand Gods will in
moments of great suffering.
The Lord never tires of forgiving us. It is we who get tired of
asking for pardon.
Lord, give us the gift of tears, the ability to cry for our sins
and so receive your forgiveness.
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3Prayer Groups in the Messages of Medjugorje
One of the most important things expressed in the messages of
Medjugorje is the request to form prayer groups. And it isn't given
as a piece of advice, because the life of prayer groups, as is
outlined in the history of Medjugorje, contains some of the
essential elements of the life of the Church, such as faith, the
sacraments and fraternal communion.
The first call to form a prayer group was in the summer of 1982.
It was for, in particular, the young people of the parish to whom
Our Lady - through the visionaries - gave indications on how to
conduct themselves and develop their spiritual life.
One year later, a second group was formed and was led by two
young girls, Jelena and Marjiana, whose spiritual experience and
formation came by inner locutions. This group was given a founding
message on the 16 June 1983, which contained the conditions for
those who wanted to join the group:
"Renounce all passions and inordinate desires. Avoid television,
particularly negative programs. Definitely eliminate all anguish.
Those who abandon themselves to God have no place in their hearts
for anguish; there will be difficulties, but they will serve for
spiritual growth and to glorify God. Love your enemies; banish from
the heart hatred, bitterness, and prejudices. Pray for your enemies
and invoke the divine blessing upon them. Pray with great
meditation and do not watch the clock continuously, but let
yourself be guided by the grace of God. Do not you worry about the
things of this world, but entrust everything in prayer to the
heavenly Father. When one is too concerned he cannot pray because
he lacks inner serenity. God will help to bring success to earthly
things when one strives to open up to His things. Fast on bread and
water twice a week. Every day devote three hours to prayer, of
which half an hour in the morning and half an hour in the
evening..."
Our Lady also dictated some prayers to this group, including an
Act of Consecration to Her Immaculate Heart. Our Lady also asked
the members to dedicate themselves to the group for five years.
This group had as its guide the Franciscan fathers of the parish,
and it became a model for the many groups that were then formed all
over the world, for people who dedicated themselves,
Medjugorje and the Church not to "talking about" Medjugorje, but
to putting the messages into practice.
In 1986 Fr. Slavko Barbari told an Italian prayer group meeting:
"The messages are the starting point, not the point of arrival. If
the messages were the point of arrival, then the journey, the
conversion, would be over. What we are doing is putting Our Lady's
messages into our brain as though in a drawer, and we leave them
there. But we are not doing anything!" Fr. Slavko pointed out,
instead: "A group can give only what it has lived. The messages are
given for a journey. They are words for specific situations, meant
to help the soul open up and be receptive to Jesus and to
Mary."
Various times in successive years other messages were given of a
more general nature to remind us of the program for prayer
groups:
"Dear Children, renew prayer in your families and start up
prayer groups. That way you will experience the joy of prayer and
of communion. All those who pray and are members of prayer groups,
are open in their hearts to God's will and they give joyful witness
of God's will" (25.9.2000);
"Prayer groups are strong. Through them I can see how the Holy
Spirit is at work in the world" (25.6.2004).
The importance of forming groups where spiritual gifts are
cultivated and one's faith is able to grow, is typical of the
Church structure which can be seen in the beginning of the Church
when the disciples, "with one accord were devoting themselves to
prayer, together with Mary" (cf. Acts 1:14) and "they devoted
themselves to the apostles' teaching and the fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers" (Acts 2:42).
It is also seen in the lives of saints who were particularly
devoted to Our Lady. For example, St. Louis Grignion de Montfort
desired the formation of (lay) fraternities dedicated to prayer and
works of charity. St. Maximilian Kolbe developed the spirituality
of the Consecration to the Immaculate by forming a lay movement
called The Militia Immaculatae.
Therefore, the formation of prayer groups born of the
spirituality of Medjugorje is part of a Marian tradition which has
belonged to the life of the Catholic Church for centuries.
Marco Vignati, Com. Casa di Maria Roma
A PIECE OF PARADISE ON EARTH
With the arrival of spring, Medjugorje has come alive again. It
is visible not only in the nature, but in the presence of pilgrims
which once again have come to Medjugorje. Typically, many, many
pilgrims were here for the Easter celebrations.
Medjugorje has for many years been holding international
meetings. Some of them have been held annually for many years, and
some are more recent, such as the Seminar for Medical and
Paramedical personnel [held from 13-16 May 2015]. Then there is the
international pilgrimage for people with disabilities which this
year (11-14 June 2015) is the fourth, and had the participation of
Marie-Hlne Mathieu, co-founder of the international movement Faith
and Light.
Pilgrim guides are well aware of the difficulties when a pilgrim
gets hurt. We are thankful for the group called Guardian Angels who
offer their assistance to pilgrims who hurt themselves on the
hills, since there is not always a medical service available. Thank
God especially for the Knights of Malta who operate an emergency
medical service in Medjugorje from spring through to October.
On the first Sunday after Easter there was a meeting for
charismatic groups from Croatia and Bosnia-Hercegovina, with a
total of more than one thousand people attending. The main
objective was to create a strengthened fraternal communion and
better organization among the various groups (which number about
70). Salvatore Martinez, President of the Italian Charismatic
movement, and Fr. Guido Pietrogrande, the spiritual guide of the
movement, were guests at the meeting.
The biggest problem of the world - it was said - is that it does
not acknowledge Jesus Christ, and this results in a world that does
not want to be saved. And the biggest problem in the Church is that
the Holy Spirit is not known enough, and consequently there is not
enough live
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Mantua, May 2015 Resp. Ing. Lanzani - Tip. DIPRO (Roncade
TV)
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Message given through Mirjana 2 MAY 2015
Dear Children, open your hearts and try to feel how much I love
you and how much I desire for you to love my Son. I desire for you
to know Him better, because it is impossible to know Him and not
love Him, for He is love. My children, I know you. I know your pain
and suffering because I have lived them. I rejoice with you in your
joy and I cry with you in your sorrow. I will never abandon you. I
will always speak to you with motherly tenderness. And, as a
mother, I need your hearts open so that with wisdom and simplicity
you can spread the love of my Son. I need you to be open and
sensitive to the good and mercy. I need you to be united with my
Son, because I desire for you to be happy and to help me bring
happiness to all of my children. My apostles, I need you, so you
can show everyone the divine truth, so that my heart, which has
suffered and also today suffers immensely, may triumph in love.
Pray for the holiness of your pastors, so that in the Name of my
Son they may work miracles, because holiness works miracles. Thank
you.
This is how Mary wants us: open and receptive to the good and to
mercy. It is for this reason that she continues and without tiring,
to visit us, console us, exhort us, beseech us, support us, and
encourage us! Our Lady, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ, watches
over us as she watched over her Son. She suffered then and she
suffers now, till her Heart can triumph in love. Hers is not a mere
motherly desire which is limited by time and space, but it is God's
own plan of salvation!
"God the Holy Spirit, who does not produce any divine person,
became fruitful through Mary whom he espoused. It was with her, in
her and of her that he produced his masterpiece, God-made-man, and
that he produces every day until the end of the world the members
of the body of this adorable Head. For this reason the more he
finds Mary his dear and inseparable spouse in a soul the more
powerful and effective he becomes in producing Jesus Christ in that
soul and that soul in Jesus Christ. (Treatise on True Devotion to
Mary, by Montfort, paragraph 20)
Today's message, and the above statement by Montfort, talk to us
of real communion with Jesus, of the inhabitation of Jesus in our
hearts. But these remain sterile if our own "fiat" (Thy will be
done) is lacking. It isn't always easy to accept God's will; and we
have learnt from Medjugorje that our will needs
I Am With You! Dear friends of the Echo of
Medjugorje, These difficult times that we are
living are firmly in the hands of the Queen of Peace who as
Sovereign and Mother, comes to assure us. That phrase, "I am with
you" ought to stir us out of any anguish and fear we might have.
But, Our Lady sees our restlessness. Instead, we must give the
Queen of Peace the honour and joy of believing in her words, but
also in her love for us. Her love for us is a reflection of God's
own love for us, for she comes in His Name!
With infinite love let us ask our blessed Mother for her mother
blessing.
I also bless you and invoke upon you all the love and mercy of
God!
Fr. Massimo Rastrelli, S.J.
experience of the Risen Lord, there is not enough life to the
full, because it is the Holy Spirit who gives life through the gift
of love and communion.
The mission, therefore, of the Charismatic Movement (which today
has more than 250,000 members in Italy) is to promote a greater
knowledge of the Holy Spirit and of his manifestations to people
who thirst for God and His Love. Pope John Paul II once said that
250,000 people were enough to make a city; the city of the Holy
Spirit. Salvatore Martinez invited everyone to think of themselves
as citizens of the city of the Holy Spirit: "Love," he said,
"cannot stand divisions. If we are brothers and sisters, then we
must stay together. We are here to show that love is stronger than
national and personal differences, and stronger than any geographic
distance."
This meeting at Medjugorje has also served as a preparation for
the world meeting of charismatic groups with Pope Francis in Rome
in 2017. The fact that it was held in Medjugorje is not entirely
casual, because the Holy Spirit is not secondary or marginal to the
spirituality of Medjugorje. Our Lady, in her messages, has often
asked us to pray to the Holy Spirit to receive light from on high,
so we can receive the heavenly blessing on our families and on the
the parish, and so we might receive the Spirit of truth to better
live the Holy Mass.
Our Lady has said to us that we invoke the Holy Spirit too
infrequently. When you have the Holy Spirit," she said, "you have
everything!" What Our Lady and the grace of the her presence in
Medjugorje can give to the charismatic movement is definitely
humility and a sense of service. Joining the gifts of the Spirit
with the virtues of Our Lady would indeed be an excellent recipe
for the renewal of the individual, of the community and of the
Church!
With Our Lady's presence in Medjugorje, we really can speak of a
piece of paradise on the earth. But also the faithful, if they
filled with the Holy Spirit and with Mary's virtue, they also
become a piece of paradise on the earth.
Paula Tomi
strengthening with the sacraments, with prayer, abstinence and
fasts; abstinence not only from food, but also from every form of
abuse (see Mary's instructions for the prayer group in Vignati's
article on p. 3).
We give thanks to you oh blessed Mother for this message so full
of love and hope! Peace and joy in Jesus and Mary! N.Q.
I desire for you to know my Son better!
It is not possible to know my Son and not also love
Him!